Toddlers 1 - 3 years old. Sense and motor skills
Seeing the world from the child's perspective can be taken quite literally when talking about toddlers: most 2 yearolds are but 1 m tall so to understand their way of viewing the world, adults should get down on their knees. Furthermore the toddler physique and experience span makes the world a demanding place to navigate. So the more age appropriate the playground, the more pleasurable, safe and educational the time spent - for the children as well as their parents.
Considering sizes also means designing for the right level of abilities: A two-year-old might not need a three meter tall slide to get thrilled, reach the limits of his or her abilities and progress skills when we consider that 180 is already double their height and might be more scary than thrilling. To consider differences in sizes is the first step on the way to child oriented playgrounds and play furniture. The next step is to consider social, physical, cognitive, emotional and creative needs.
See Playground Equipment for TODDLERS
Parallel play
The toddlers in the playground do parallel games. In earlier days they were said not to be much aware of the children around them but in fact they do notice each other a lot. And they do little games together. Adults often miss out on that because the games are more or less speechless. Toddlers do not have their language fully developed yet and use most of their time developing their own abilities.
The sensomotor development is the main developmental characteristic of the toddlers. Colours and contrasts guide the child A newborn baby can barely see. Light attracts the eyes of the infant. Contrasts are perceived and gradually the ability to perceive colours develop. The strongest reaction to colours is to strong colours. Up till the age of app. 12 years children have a developmental limit to how much they can perceive. This means that the items we want them to notice first must send strong design signals.
Contrasts in the products will guide the child and help estimate distances, different levels and support the child's spatial awareness. Contrasts can be everything from a red vertical panel meeting a dark grey horizontal floor - showing the differenceof vertical and horizontal squares - to black and white, light and darkness. As a mere function -if we can at all speak of mere function in our culture - black and white will do.
But at KOMPAN we recommend colour contrasts as we know that colours appeal to children, make them feel welcome and send out a strong signal for PLAY. With the words of the artist and architect Hundertwasser: "A colourful world is always a synonym for paradise. A grey or monocoloured world is always a synonym for purgatory or hell", Hundertwasser.
Colour has always been a strong signal. Today we tend to speak a lot about nature's colours, and there is a tendency to level the colours of nature with the predominant colours of the (North) western parts of the world: subtle pastels, lots of grey, beige and khaki.
But to be honest, we all know, that nature has all colours. The nature trend would be natural in a pendulum thought of cultural trends: Since the middle of the 20th century it has been possible to mass produce plastics in bright colours, and our everyday life has become, maybe, fed with strong primary colours. The next cultural pendulum move would be to renounce these colours. It is evident, that children are attracted to strong colours.
Historically strong colours have been used for toys since 1000 b.c. in China. And today an obvious example from everyday life would be: Bring little children to the toy store with you. Will they run to the subtle coloured wooden toys first, or would they go for the eye popping colours on Barbie, Lego etc. The answer is evident to most parents. And the obvious question to follow would be: For whom do we in fact build playgrounds? Who do you want to attract and appeal to: Children or grown ups? The perfect combination would be to appeal to both these groups. But if we want to stimulate the children to play - to develop all of their physical, mental and social abilities, we must appeal to them, first and foremost!
Sensomotor development
The toddlers develop all their senses - the vision gets integrated with the motor skills. The sense of touch, or the tactile system, is developing every day making the child able to do more and more refined tasks.
Tactile experiences
Outdoor play items to stimulate tactility and fine motor skills: Tactile/mobile elements, sand.
Continue reading about Preschool Play.
